


Who Is Your Master

by TheSigyn



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: BDSM, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-23
Updated: 2010-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 14:40:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4629039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSigyn/pseuds/TheSigyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Peri are already having difficulties in their inherently tempestuous relationship, and to make matters worse, the Master has set himself to be the worm in the bud, devouring Peri from the inside. Set during The Mark of the Rani.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the only incomplete story I've ever put anywhere. I never did finish it, but enough is here to count as a conclusion to anyone who inexplicably really loves my writing. 
> 
> This was a story I couldn’t help writing when I saw the Mark of the Rani and watched the Master running about the whole episode with a lethal dildo.   
> Content warning. This is not what you’d call a love story, and contains a sex scene of wildly dubious consent. I’ve also quoted verbatim some of the deleted scenes.  
> Feel free to skip to chapter four after this if what you're after is pure sex.

“Have you ever seen the Pagoda at Kew?” the Doctor asked.   
  
Peri frowned at him. “What?”   
  
She had been trying for the last four hours to turn him on. It was proving decidedly difficult to do. Stripping down to nearly her underwear had proved ineffective. Accidentally bumping into him and touching him in erotic places had failed to yield results. Even insulting him and trying to start a massive fight had not resulted in his grabbing her in fury and forcing her against the wall, followed by five hours of constant, passionate sex.   
  
She couldn’t just come out and ask for sex — she just couldn’t — but she couldn’t believe that even the Doctor was this dense. He was brilliant — he’d told her so himself — and he knew her very, very, very well. The only man in the universe who had realized that she liked to be hit and bound and forced and insulted, who knew she needed to be utterly and completely dominated to enjoy her body.   
  
Unfortunately, he seemed to take this domination so far as to deprive her of sex when she was starving for it. They’d only made love two or three times, and each time there were weeks in between. Granted each time they had made love he had nearly made her pass out in ecstacy and exhaustion, but she wasn’t sure that the intensity was worth the wait.   
  
For the last hour she’d had to resort to making consistent innuendo regarding poles, towers and other hard, long, powerful things, in the hopes that the references would communicate themselves to some other part of his anatomy than his mind.   
  
All it seemed to do was put strange notions into his head. “Pagoda at Kew? What are you talking about?”   
  
“There’s this folly at Kew gardens, this pagoda which makes about as much sense as a duck in a desert. There it is, amongst all these pretty English gardens, this Japanese pagoda just leaping out like a grotesque. Ever seen it?”   
  
“I’m from California, remember?”   
  
“I thought you were from America.”   
  
Peri tried not to roll her eyes. “California is IN America, Doctor? And no, of course I haven’t seen it.”   
  
“Well, we’ll have to remedy that,” the Doctor said. “I’ll take you to the Royal opening day! Go put on something reasonable and I’ll show it to you. You won’t regret it.”   
  
Peri looked down at her haltertop and shorts. Really she was revealing enough skin to seduce a monk. Fury burbled inside her. “Doctor!” she said. Sometimes, just sometimes, she could get angry enough (or conversely emotionally quiet enough, but that was extremely rare) to admit what she wanted. “Are you really so stupid as to not understand what I’ve been trying to get at?”   
  
“I am a genius, Peri,” the Doctor said without modesty.   
  
“Well, you’re a bloody thick one!” Peri snapped. “I’m — I’m — hungry.”   
  
“Well, go to the kitchens, dear girl,” the Doctor said, poking at the controls. “You’re thin as a rake.”   
  
“Uff!” Peri scoffed at him. “Doctor, look at me!”   
  
The Doctor did. “You look cold,” he said brusquely.   
  
Peri actually squeaked in rage.   
  
The Doctor seemed to relent. His face softened and lost the petulantly oblivious look. “I know, my dear,” he said gently. “Later.”   
  
“Now,” Peri insisted.   
  
The Doctor stared at her. “It’ll have to be later,” he said, and Peri knew there was no arguing with him.   
  
But she still couldn’t help but be disappointed. “Why?” she asked.   
  
He didn’t answer the question. He only glanced at her. “Have mercy, Peri,” he said dully.   
  
This from a man who had tied her to the wall with his watch chain and tortured her with spanks until she screamed, and had no compunctions about denying her orgasm for nearly an hour. “You never do,” Peri snapped as she stomped past him.   
  
The Doctor grabbed her. ‘Oh, God, yes!’ Peri thought.   
  
But she was disappointed. He didn’t press her against the console and strip her naked. Instead he merely glared at her. “You have a strange opinion of mercy. You always have a way to stop me, Peri,” he said pointedly — and this was true. She did. If she mentioned something was wrong with the TARDIS, the Doctor had sworn to stop whatever he was doing — whatever that might be. He looked up and down her scantily clad form. “I have no way whatever of stopping you.” He let her go and pushed her lightly away from him.   
  
Peri stared at him. He was alien — she’d had ample chance to observe that fact at close hand. Maybe he wasn’t just torturing her by denying her sex. Maybe... for some reason... he couldn’t...?   
  
It was one of those inherently sexual questions which her wounded psyche couldn’t bear to ask. She couldn’t talk about what she wanted, she couldn’t admit to being sexual, and she certainly couldn’t ask him about his sexual proclivities. She could only put herself in the way of the deluge and hope it washed her away. But the Doctor was actually upset. Not just his normal blusterous anger and his theatrical posturing. This was something deep and inherent, and what she wanted was really bothering him. She wondered if she really was pushing it, and hoped she hadn’t messed things up by being... too forward.   
  
He said nothing else, and he wouldn’t look at her again.   
  
Finally she went to change. She changed into something comparatively modest and concealing, with an empire bust that even hid her waist. When she returned to the console room the Doctor looked at her with clear gratitude. “Yuk,” he said with disgust.   
  
By now, this commentary on sartorial taste was a running gag. The moment he said it, she knew it was all right between them. “Hey, Doctor,” Peri laughed, “this is great!”   
  
“The dress is too large?”   
  
Peri looked down at herself. “Too large?” What was with him? First complaining about her skimpy clothing and now it was the other way around?   
  
“Isn’t that the accepted meaning of great?” the Doctor teased. “Synonym for large?”   
  
Peri grinned. She realized this was the most concealing thing she had ever worn around him. Ever. He was anything but oblivious. “Spare me the lecture,” she teased back.   
  
Their banter continued for a moment or two, but their journey to the Royal opening day was delayed. Less than a minute later the TARDIS had been highjacked, and Kew Gardens was off the agenda. And Peri found herself, face to face once again, with the Master.   
  
Circumstances spiraled wildly out of the Doctor’s control, and Peri even had a tense hour or two when she thought she’d been abandoned, and she’d be stuck in the nineteenth century for the rest of her life. She’d never been so frightened. Her faith in the Doctor was starting to waver... and that was a terrifying thought. Because she still needed him. Desperately.   
  
Eventually Peri was left holding the Master’s weapon on both the Master and the Rani while the Doctor went off to save a bunch of luddites. Peri grasped the squat black weapon in both hands — she had never seen anything that looked so much like a dildo. What kind of message was the Master trying to send, here?   
  
The Master did not look frightened by her, though, which worried her.   
  
Deep in the mines at the edge of town, the Rani tricked Peri and cracked open a tablet of a soporific drug. Gasping, control over her limbs fading, Peri dropped the weapon and fell to the ground, completely at the mercy of the Master and the Rani.   
  
The Rani couldn’t care less one way or another, but the Master got a curious look on his face as she faded in wooziness. He knelt down beside her with a wicked, wicked grin.   
  
“Let’s go!” the Rani said, brushing the rest of the drug off her hands.   
  
“No,” the Master said, looking over Peri with his eyes narrowed. “I have business with Miss Brown.”   
  
“Your business is no concern of mine!” the Rani told him.   
  
“But this vial of brain fluid I’m carrying IS,” the Master said pointedly, glaring at her. “So you’ll wait!”   
  
The Rani rolled her eyes and leaned against the side of the mine, tapping her foot impatiently.   
  
“You sat back and watched me burn, Miss Brown,” the Master said. “I think you owe me something for that.”   
  
I owe you nothing! Peri spat. Or tried to. All she could force her mouth to say was, “I... ohh....” and her head lolled.   
  
“Ah, poor Perpugilliam Brown,” the Master breathed. He pulled off one of his black gloves. His hand passed over her face, holding her jaw, and his thumb tickled over her lip. “You poor little human thing. The Doctor can’t possibly be taking proper care of you, can he.”   
  
Peri’s eyes rolled in her head. “H-how...?”   
  
“How do I know what you are to each other?” the Master asked. His hand was cool and sensual, and he cradled her flesh like it was gelatin and might break if he squeezed too hard. “Come now, Miss Brown. How could I be so ignorant as to not know? Your scent permeates his clothing. Your dirty hand prints are smudged all over his psyche.” He got a curious look on his face. “It’s odd, actually. Usually he has more self-control with his human pets.” He bent down and breathed into her face. “You know he really belongs to me, don’t you?”   
  
“I do- I don’t know... any-th-th....” She couldn’t focus enough to pull the words out of the dizziness. The Master’s eyes were like gems, and his voice was a like a tether, pulling her along. He smelled like the Doctor, that same alien scent.   
  
“We don’t have time for this!” the Rani snapped from behind him. “Give me my vial!”   
  
“You should pay close attention, Rani,” the Master said, allowing her to distract him for only a moment. “Have you never watched one of these humans at sexual climax? You’d be impressed. The level of hormones and endorphins that are released would amaze even you.”   
  
That did get through the wooziness. “What?”   
  
“You see?” the Master glared at the Rani. “Now you’ve gone and made me frighten her.” He lightly touched her temple. “Shh, now, Miss Brown,” he said evenly. “Don’t worry about that. Just let me... in....”   
  
She could feel him, edging his way into her psyche. And there was no way to stop him.   
  
The Doctor said that she didn’t have much in the way of natural mental defenses, and that was why she ended up simply carried away when they were making love, because she never tried to fight him off. She didn’t know how to fight off the Master now. Images flickered through her mind, always of the Doctor — the Master wasn’t interested in anything else. They were typically pleasant memories, all of them associated with her Doctor, but the Master was not gentle in how he pulled them from her mind. It raked through her, leaving her wanting to scream, but she couldn’t even do that much. She lost all control over her body as the memories were ripped from her.   
  
The Doctor, steadfast, gentle, carrying her through the caves of Androzani, determination strong on his face as he told himself I Will Not Die! I Will Not Die!   
  
The Doctor again, newly regenerated, furious and terrified, screaming in the wardrobe room over the vast boredom of eternity.   
  
Now angry, half mad, seizing her in the console room, his hands tight around her throat, his body strong and passionate above her, pushing her, forcing her, before he even knew what it meant.   
  
Picking her up in rage on the streets of Praxis, holding her against the wall, tortured, confused, frightened, frightening her.   
  
The first time he kissed her, sweet and seductive, just the edge of teeth, knowing now what he wanted of her, what she wanted, what it all meant, why they had to be together like this.   
  
Another kiss, last week some time, this one passionate, angry, in the midst of an argument, a kiss so fierce as to almost bruise her, his strength holding her against the wall.   
  
And the sex. Flashes and flashes of him inside her, against her, before her, atop her, beneath her, forcing her, pulsing, generous, demanding, overwhelming, again and again and again until she was in an agony of pleasure — all too much, but all too infrequent.   
  
Peri was gushing juices between her legs by now, unable to control herself in the least. The Master was much too much like the Doctor, and he had pulled too much of her love and lust for him out of her head. She moaned as the Master pulled up all the moments of forced bondage, the pain, the slaps, the whips on her back with his braces, how the Doctor pushed into her from behind as she screamed and screamed, unwilling to stop him and unable to submit.   
  
And over it all, the Master’s piercing black pupils that seemed just past the edge of insanity, so far that he could take her with him. She wanted something. She wanted it so badly she could taste it, with the Master’s eyes staring into her like gems and so much sex and passion dragged through her mind. It hurt. It really, really hurt. “Ah, yes.” The Master chuckled. “I can’t believe it. So he’s finally come full circle, has he?” He whispered in Peri’s ear. “You know, I used to make love to him like that. Can you believe it?”   
  
Peri could. The Master, screaming as he burned the last time she’d seen him, “Won’t you even show mercy to your own....” And the Doctor wouldn’t.   
  
“He loved me once,” the Master hissed. His breath seemed to go all through her ear and tickled her mind. “And he ran from me. He betrayed me. He does it to everyone. All his pet humans. Even his granddaughter.” The Doctor’s eyes glittered. “He’ll do the same to you.”   
  
Peri would have shuddered if she hadn’t already been trembling. All the names the Doctor had called her while his memory was still jumbled after his regeneration. Sarah Jane. Tegan. Susan. Jo. Zoe. Jamie. She didn’t know who all of those people were, but she knew there had been many humans who had traveled with the Doctor, and she knew she was just the latest. She thought about Turlough, whom the Doctor had left behind without much qualm. And she was terribly afraid that the Master was telling the truth.   
  
He ran his fingers down her jawline, and she shuddered with lust. Unlike with the Doctor, she knew she would stop the Master if she’d had the power. He really, really did frighten her, and she did not trust him in the least. He might well kill her. But she was so primed for this kind of domination that her body couldn’t help but respond. She couldn’t escape his seductive black voice, and she knew it, and she was almost... almost glad. “Do you know how I got my name?” the Master asked. He had insinuated himself beside her, and she could feel his body all along her through her sedate, demure dress. “I am the Master. That’s what he used to call me. I was HIS Master.” He took his weapon from Peri’s still hand. “Master, he called me. Yes, Master. No, Master. Please, please Master. All he’s doing with you is becoming me. Every time you make love to him, it’s really me. Did you know that?”   
  
He lifted her skirts and forced his hand down her pants. He yanked them down, just far enough to reach her secret corners. “Ah, Miss Brown,” the Master said, finding her wet and ready. “This is too easy.”   
  
Peri was still woozy, but she kept her legs closed. Then the Master powered up his weapon. Peri groaned, unable to help herself. It made the machine vibrate gently, and he held it firmly against her clit. She knew if he pressed the right button on the edge she’d be dead. She knew that thick black thing could dissolve her every atom and turn her into so much wind. But it felt so GOOD! Between the Rani’s drug and the Master’s hypnotic eyes and his seductive voice and her memories of the Doctor and the wonderful feeling of the weapon between her legs, Peri was lost.   
  
There was another nudge on her psyche as the Master forced the Doctor’s image forefront again in her mind. It wasn’t even a sexual image — because this time, the image was for the Master, not for her. It was what the Master wanted to see, what he wanted to claim as his. It was the Doctor, laughing. Laughing fondly, his Cheshire Cat grin, his tongue between his teeth as he laughed with joy at something Peri had done for him. But this time she could hear the Master in her head. ‘Ah, yes!’   
  
It was exactly the same feeling that Peri had had that morning in the TARDIS, when the Doctor had finally touched her. An utter relief, a moment of, ‘Finally!’ Peri pushed herself against the vibrating weapon, her cunt opening and closing, hungry for the thick shaft it knew was tickling above her.   
  
“Say it, Miss Brown,” the Master hissed. “Say my name, and you can have it.”   
  
“No...” She didn’t want this. She did not want this!   
  
“Say my name. Call me Master, as he did, and everything is yours.”   
  
“The TARDIS,” Peri whimpered, crying. “Need... back to... TARDIS....”   
  
“That doesn’t work on me,” the Master whispered. “Say it, Peri,” he hissed. “Call me Master, say it!”   
  
“Master,” Peri sighed. “Master!”   
  
She wasn’t even sure where the word had come from.   
  
And the Master pushed the weapon deep inside her, fucking her with gentle determination. Peri groaned, her clit now achingly neglected, but her cunt oh so full with such deathly power. She was afraid to squeeze the weapon, afraid her muscles would press the wrong button and she’d be destroyed. The fear and the desire warred within her, and she trembled beneath the Master’s hands.   
  
She needed to come. Suddenly she knew if she could just come, this whole wonderful nightmare would be over. She couldn’t move, her body still heavy with the Rani’s drug, but she tried. She tried to move her hand, to find herself, to bring herself to climax, but the Master was having none of that. “Ah, no, Perpugillium,” he hissed, gently moving her hand. “You do only what I say you do.”   
  
“Master,” she breathed, hoping the name would bring out whatever small piece of mercy might be tangled deep in his madness. “Master, Master....”   
  
“You want your... human orgasm, don’t you,” the Master said. “Do you think you’ll survive it? Do you think the throes of ecstasy that will rock your body will leave you in enough control to keep you from turning this on?” He twisted the weapon and the power cells hummed more deeply. She could feel the round head deep inside her, rocking her to the core. She cried out, sobbing.   
  
“Oh, for crying out loud!” the Rani snapped. “Can you get this over with? Kill her already!”   
  
“I’m busy!” the Master barked at her.   
  
“You’re indulging your little passions with this poor animal,” the Rani said. Even the Rani felt sympathy, and Peri had thought she couldn’t feel anything at all. “There’s no purpose to this. You don’t even want her!”  
  
“Humans are the Doctor’s fixation, not mine!” the Master snapped.   
  
“And this is all for him,” the Rani scoffed. “You are obsessed.”   
  
“That’s rich coming from you!” the Master said. “What if I were to pour the contents of this vial right inside her? Eh?”   
  
“Don’t!”   
  
Peri was working while they argued. She found her clit and tried to work it, pushing it until she began to feel it. The Master released the weapon and caught her hand, leaving the weapon humming inside her. “Oh, no, no, no,” he droned, and Peri sobbed.   
  
The Master stared down at her. “You want it?”   
  
“No!” Peri breathed.   
  
He didn’t listen. “You can have it. But only if you give me what I want,” the Master intoned.   
  
“What?”   
  
“I want the Doctor!” the Master snapped. “You can tell me how I can have him. So tell me!”  
  
“I don’t know,” Peri breathed.   
  
“Tell me! Tell me what you do for him! Tell me!”   
  
“I don’t know!” Peri cried. She realized if she was able to speak clearly at all the effects of the Rani’s drug must have been fading. But she still wanted the Master’s hands upon her. She wanted to feel him working his way with her. She hated herself for wanting it, but she wanted it, badly. “I don’t know! I don’t know what he wants or what he needs, I don’t know him at all. He knows me!” She sobbed as the Master grunted in anger. “He’s the one who knows everything.”   
  
The Master stared at her, and she knew he believed her. “You’re useless.”   
  
“Please!” Peri moaned. She wanted to come so badly it was torture, worse than with the Doctor, because she really DIDN’T want to be here, and she really DIDN’T want the Master, but at the same time she wanted it, and his eyes pierced her and her body tingled all over, and if she had been able to move she’d have flung herself on him and smothered him with kisses, forcing her body upon him, and she would have hated herself every minute. “Please, I need it!”   
  
“Have him do it for you,” the Master said with ire.   
  
Peri sobbed again, in earnest this time. Because the Doctor wouldn’t. She knew he wouldn’t. He did last week, but he wouldn’t this week, and she had no idea when he ever might again. “He won’t.... I never know when. But so often he just won’t... he won’t touch me....”   
  
That was the problem, she realized in another painful burst of self-realization. She hated these. She was used to burying her psyche and refusing to look at it. She hadn’t realized until this moment — when she was starving for an orgasm — that what she’d really wanted this morning was just... contact. Not sex, really, though that would have satisfied the need admirably. She just wanted him to hold her. But the Doctor had been dragging up bits of her psyche, piece by piece for her to examine, and now the Master had done the same....   
  
The Master stared down at her, and his face had changed. There was sympathy there. “He won’t touch me, either,” he whispered. Suddenly he shifted, and his hand pressed against her clit. Peri writhed, grinding herself against him, moaning with the relief of it. She knew it might kill her, but it didn’t matter. If the Master wanted her dead, she was dead. She had no control at all over this.   
  
Finally, the weapon still deep inside her, the Master’s black eyes pinning her to the floor, his hand pushing roughly on her clit, Peri came so hard she nearly passed out. She thought, for one terrified second, that this was death, that the weapon had discharged, that her molecular cohesion had failed and she was being stripped away to her component atoms. But as the orgasm faded she realized the weapon was no longer vibrating. The Master had turned off the power. Her orgasm had not resulted in her death.   
  
He didn’t want to kill her.   
  
Suddenly she felt something break, as if a connection had been severed, as if she’d been listening to silent room on a telephone, but now was listening to a dead line. No actual difference, but something was no longer there. And the Master let his gaze drop from her eyes.   
  
She did not lose consciousness, but she lost all will to move. The Master retrieved his weapon, leaving her empty and satisfied. He neatly pulled her pants back around her hips and artistically arranged her skirts over her legs. Whatever he was doing, he was leaving this rape to be divulged later. “Now, my dear Rani,” the Master said, pulling his glove back on. “Now we may go.”   
  
The Rani stared at Peri. “You’re right,” she said, her voice cool and crisp. “That was rather informative.”  
  
It was some little time later that the Doctor found her, still unwilling to move and very woozy. “Peri!”   
  
Peri didn’t want to mention the Master, and what had happened. She felt vaguely ashamed of herself, as if she should have fought harder, as if she shouldn’t have enjoyed it. She was very used to that feeling, though. She’d spent most of the later years of her childhood feeling exactly the same. “The Rani,” Peri supplied by way of explanation. “Tablet. My-my fault.” The whole thing felt like her fault.   
  
“Never mind that now,” the Doctor asked, petting her proprietorially. “Are you all right?”   
  
“Yes, I’m fine,” Peri said. It sounded like a complaint. But the Doctor only barely registered her statement, once he’d realized she was cognizant. Instead he threw cryptic half-explanations at her and flustered commentary. Then he jumped up to carry on, barely noting that she was only alive because of the Master’s pity.   
  
“Is it too much to ask for an explanation?” Peri asked.   
  
“Later!” the Doctor barked, trailing after the Master with a flourish of his motley coat.   
  
Peri shivered with rage and shame and the aftereffects of lust. “Later,” she muttered angrily, brushing down her skirts. “All I ever get. Later!”   



	2. Chapter 2

  
Later.   
  
“So what exactly do you do in there?” the prim, 19th century gentleman asked.  
  
The Doctor glanced back as he opened the TARDIS and frowned. “Argue, mainly,” he said.   
  
Peri glared at him, half fond, half annoyed. As the doors closed behind her the Doctor bounced over to the console like a dalmatian puppy, all flapping of coattails and waving of limbs.   
  
“We don’t just argue,” Peri said, stripping off her yellow coat.   
  
“Don’t we?” the Doctor said distractedly.   
  
Peri hung the coat up on the coatrack. “You look awfully pleased with yourself,” Peri said.   
  
“I’ve had a very pleasant day,” the Doctor said lightly. “Had a lovely talk with George Stephenson. Saved a few lives. Got the Master and the Rani out of Earth’s back yard for a few decades. Yes, I think we can say I’ve done VERY well for myself today.”   
  
“Speak for yourself,” Peri snapped. “You weren’t the one drugged in a mine shaft or nearly turned into a tree!”   
  
“Actually, Peri,” the Doctor said, “yes, I was. I had quite the close call with one of the Rani’s biological land mines. And if you’ll remember, I was also gassed unconscious, tied to a surgical table, and then shunted down a hill at thirty miles an hour.”   
  
“It wasn’t thirty miles an hour.”   
  
“It certainly felt like it from atop that gurney!” the Doctor said. “That you let go of.” He looked up at her, humorous accusation in his eyes. As far as he was concerned, they had fallen back into their typical fondly annoyed banter.   
  
But it didn’t feel the same to Peri. “I’m afraid I DON’T have much sympathy for you,” she said. “Considering you just waltzed off in the Rani’s TARDIS, leaving me behind.”   
  
The Doctor frowned at her, as if she was a little girl complaining that he didn’t kiss her bear goodnight, too. “I came right back, Peri,” the Doctor said. “You know I would never have abandoned you.”   
  
“Do I?” Peri asked. “You left Turlough behind. You haven’t gone to check on him or anything. For all you know he’s been assassinated.”   
  
“Per-i,” the Doctor said, that cajoling, jocund tone he used when trying to convince her that the Eye of Orion really was the best place to relax, or that Mongol China really had the best beer she would ever taste. Or when he’d just done something ridiculous and awful, like burn a salad, or leave the environmental controls on such high humidity that her bedclothes became wet as a marsh. “Come on, now.”   
  
“No,” Peri said. “You know, you keep getting my name wrong, too.”   
  
“I do not.”  
  
“Sarah Jane,” Peri retorted. “Tegan. Jamie. How many names have you called me?”   
  
“I haven’t done that in... weeks, at least,” the Doctor said, looking uncomfortable. He looked away and twirled a dial on the console. Peri was becoming increasingly of the opinion that most of those controls did absolutely nothing, and he just poked at them to look important.   
  
“Well, I’ve just been thinking about it,” Peri said. “You’ve had all these people who traveled with you, and what am I? Were you fucking all of them?”   
  
The Doctor glared at her, his face clouded now. This was a direction their banter never took. “Peri,” he said, his tone clipped. “That’s quite enough of that. I don’t know what’s come over you.”   
  
“What’s come over me is that you could have been shunted halfway across the universe, and I’d have been stuck! I’d never have seen you again, and there I’d be, forced to become some miner’s wife or — or Stephenson’s assistant, and that’s not what I wanted to do with my life!”   
  
“There’s no shame in being Stephenson’s assistant. And for that matter, there’s no reason you couldn’t have continued as a botanist in the nineteenth century,” the Doctor said. “They had plants back then, too. Several more than they will in the late twentieth, I might point out. Besides, what about this is any different from all the other times we’ve been separated, or, for that matter, all the times I’ve nearly died? None of those seemed to bother you. This is a dangerous life I lead, Peri, it’s not sitting back with the crossword of a Saturday night with the kittens playing at your feet. If you don’t want to risk it, I can take you home, because this is what I do.” He glared at her. “Also, if I might point out, I was trying to save your life,” the Doctor said. “The Rani had several nasty tripwires in her TARDIS that any species but a Time Lord would have set off. I noticed it the moment the engines powered up.”   
  
“It’s not that,” Peri said, though she was somewhat mollified by his explanation. “It’s just that I’ve realized you leave people.”   
  
The Doctor cringed. “Almost all of them ask to go,” the Doctor said, and behind the clipped rage Peri could almost hear sadness. But it was hard to tell with the Doctor. “It stops being ‘fun’.”   
  
Peri frowned. “I’m just trying to figure out if we’re all interchangeable to you. Like pets.”  
  
“You’re an intelligent, sentient creature, Peri,” the Doctor said, dismissing her concerns and turning back to the console. “You’re not a pet.”   
  
“But I am a ‘creature’,” Peri said.   
  
The Doctor glared at her. “If you’re going to argue semantics in a psychically translated dialect, take it up with the TARDIS,” he snapped.   
  
“No!” Peri said, indignant. “I’d rather take it up with you. The Master said you keep us like pets. I already know I’m just the latest in a line. And I’m trying to figure out....” Peri choked, unable to figure out what she was trying to figure out.  
  
“So now you’re believing the Master,” the Doctor said.   
  
“No,” Peri said. “But at least he lies honestly.”   
  
The Doctor got a strange expression on his face. “You know that doesn’t make any sense.”   
  
“Yes it does,” Peri retorted, aware that he was right, but it didn’t matter now. It felt SO GOOD just to be fighting with him again! This was right, this was how it was supposed to be, her and the Doctor on the TARDIS, bantering back and forth over minutiae.   
  
Except... this wasn’t minutiae. This meant something. And she wanted more than usual. She wanted it to turn darker, angrier. She wanted him to hit her. She wanted him so angry that he would beat out this memory of the Master from her consciousness.   
  
“So, what, I lie dishonestly?” the Doctor asked. “When I do, I suppose you’re right. By definition.” He glanced up. “Speaking of which, I really ought to update the TARDIS language centers, make sure that this isn’t all some horrible mistranslation in the psychic feed.... I wonder if half our arguments aren’t caused by mistranslation....”   
  
“Doctor!”   
  
“Yes?”   
  
“Here!” Peri snapped, pointing at the floor. “Now! Here and now, with me, Peri. Would you just keep your mind on one thing? I’m focused on you, it’s only fair that you do the same.”   
  
The Doctor blinked at her. “I can’t possibly think down to your level,” he said. “I’d go mad with boredom.”   
  
And, for absolutely no reason at all, Peri started to cry.   
  
It didn’t make any sense. This was exactly the kind of thing the Doctor said all the time. She expected it. She even encouraged it. Usually she found it funny. But here she was, hurt to the core by the most commonplace and unintentional slight, and she was crying.  
  
The Doctor looked stricken. “Peri?” he said. He came up to her, placed his hand hesitantly on her shoulder.   
  
“Get off!” Peri snapped, and raised her hand to shrug him off.   
  
But that wasn’t what she did. She found she had backhanded him across the face. He took a step back, his arm half raised in surprise, his eyes wide with shock. That look of pain and horror felt so good to Peri that she hit him again. And again. And again. “Get off!” she shrieked, beating him back. “Get off, get off!”   
  
The Doctor let her hit him, backing away, only lightly deflecting the worst of her blows, until he was against the wall and had nowhere farther to go. Then he grabbed her, holding her tight around the arms, keeping her still.   
  
Peri struggled and screamed, and she screamed again and again, her thin cries echoing down the corridors of the TARDIS. She sagged, and the Doctor held her, until they were both kneeling on the ground, and she screamed, screamed as if the sound was a wild thing she couldn’t control. He held her tight in his arms until the screams left her and she was abandoned and exhausted, trembling against him.   
  
There was a moment of stillness, and Peri felt empty. “Peri,” the Doctor said soberly. “What’s happened?”   
  
Peri said nothing. She couldn’t speak. She didn’t even try. She just wanted to crouch here in the Doctor’s embrace — contact, finally, contact — and maybe die. It didn’t matter to her.   
  
It was a strange feeling, particularly since her sexuality was all mixed up in it, but Peri felt ten years old again, as if she’d just been alone in the dark with her stepfather. Strangely it was as if her dad had come back from the dead and was cradling her, protecting her from the memory. And indeed, that had happened, a hundred times, only the ‘real father’ as a child had been a figment of her imagination, and this time it was the Doctor, who was not her father at all. She certainly didn’t think of him as such. But it was the same feeling, that ghostly comforter, turned real and solid and powerful.   
  
“Peri?” the Doctor asked again.   
  
She only closed her eyes and pressed her face to his waistcoat.   
  
Finally the Doctor stood up, bringing her with him. When it was clear she was not inclined to walk, he picked her up and carried her, just like he had on Androzani. But his face was different now, rounder, rougher, and he carried her much more easily with his increased strength.   
  
Finally he lay her on her bed. He straightened up to pull away, but she clung to him. Taking a deep breath, he lay down beside her, letting her hold him close. He pushed off his shoes with his toes. When she was sure he wasn’t going to leave she released him enough that he could get hers off, too, — even then she kept hold of his coattails — and then he pulled the comforter over them. “Is this what you want?” he whispered.   
  
She didn’t answer. She only closed her eyes and gripped him tightly. She thought she’d be struck with moments of panic or revulsion or fear, horror at the memory, but really it didn’t seem to matter anymore. She had what she wanted, and she was so tired. She was asleep almost instantly. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As of now, I'm just letting the two of them talk and seeing what they say. Diehard Doctor/Peri fans may well love it, but it does wander. I am self-indulgently writing this for myself now, all theme cohesion and concept thrown out the window, but I'm enjoying myself. And to quote Jack Harkness, "That's the only thing that matters, in the end."

  
  
Peri woke within a few hours. The Doctor hadn’t wanted to leave her, even though it felt awkward, holding her. He’d made love to her too recently, and the thought of holding her, touching her, made him worried and uncomfortable. But she was having dreams – not very pleasant ones, either, from what he could tell. Peri’s mind was so defenseless that he couldn’t read it, and he didn’t want to try. Every time he’d accidentally tried a mind link with her she’d crumpled instantly, swept away. He’d never had that happen before with any of his companions. Sarah Jane, for example, had a mind so strong that they shared a rapport almost a subtle as with another Time Lord. But with Peri such a thing was impossible. And she was so wildly sexual! He tried as hard as he could not to touch her except when he was capable of – completing the deed.  
  
She opened her eyes with a start, and then relaxed as she saw him. “I thought you’d be gone,” she murmured.  
  
“You wouldn’t let go,” he said, half apologetically.  
  
Peri closed her eyes and pulled away from him, giving him his freedom. He sat up, but stayed where he was. “Peri?” he asked. “What’s happened? I checked your neck, you don’t have the mark, but did the Rani–?”  
  
“No,” Peri muttered. “You can go, I don’t need you.”  
  
The Doctor gazed at her. “Now, was that you lying honestly, or dishonestly?”  
  
“Honestly,” Peri whispered. “Since you know it’s a lie.”  
  
“Peri, what’s wrong.”  
  
Peri hugged herself. “It sucks loving you,” she said quietly.  
  
The Doctor raised an eyebrow and then shifted to gaze up at the ceiling, his arms behind his head. Interspecies relationships were never easy. “Several women have expressed much the same opinion,” he mused. “Though I must say that’s the first time I’ve heard that particular phrase, so full marks for originality, there.”  
  
Peri made a small noise. She sounded hurt.  
  
The Doctor looked down at her. “What?”  
  
“Last week, if I’d said something like that, you’d have given me something to suck on.”  
  
The Doctor sighed. “Last week is not this week. Or this month.” He shifted again and watched her. This was it. He had to try and explain it to her, even though he knew she wasn’t ready to talk about it. They never talked about the physical aspect of their relationship, he always just hauled off and grabbed her whenever he could. They had sex a lot, as far as he was concerned. But it wasn’t enough for Peri, and it was time to get this into the open. “Peri... I’m not human. You’re beautiful, seductive, I can barely keep my hands off you – and that’s one of the reasons why we fight so much. You frustrate me.”  
  
“I frustrate you!” Peri began, but the Doctor cut her off, “And I know I’m frustrating you beyond sense. This is why I don’t usually take human lovers. Don’t get me wrong, it’s wonderful – addictive, really. Not that it’s easy, it is hard with humans, keeping my mind still and closed, but it is so physical and passionate and there is so much to it.... It’s my greatest vice, how much I adore humanity – all aspects of it. But we aren’t really compatible; I can’t make love nearly as often as you’d like to, and I nearly exhaust you when I do. That’s why I fought so hard against this. I knew... it might cause me to lose you.” He gently fondled a strand of her hair, his eyes deep and sincere. “And I don’t want to lose you, Peri. This thing we have is so strong it frightens me. And there’s nothing I love so much as that which frightens me.” He smiled at her.  
  
Peri frowned. “Why didn’t you just tell me this before?” she asked. “Here I’ve been thinking you were mad at me, or torturing me...”  
  
“You find it hard to talk about your sexuality.” Peri wouldn’t meet his eyes. “You do. I find it awkward because the words aren’t right,” he admitted. “Most of this kind of thing is discussed psychically on Gallifrey, lots of shared feelings and images. We don’t even have words for most of it.” He touched her hair again. “Words aren’t intense enough.” He took a deep breath. “But this is all a very convenient way of distracting me from whatever it was that made you break down in the console room.”  
  
Peri shuddered and pulled away.  
  
The Doctor frowned. She didn’t want to be reminded. This was serious. “Something happened to you. While I was gone in the Rani’s TARDIS or... or in the mineshaft.” The Doctor gazed down at her. He tried to read her face, but it was closed, her brown eyes dead and empty. “You have to tell me, Peri. I don’t read people’s minds lightly.” He stared at her. “Did the Rani do something to you?” Peri didn’t answer. “The Master?”  
  
Peri nodded.  
  
“What happened?”  
  
Peri shook her head.  
  
“Did he hurt you? Threaten you?” Peri said nothing. “Did he try to turn you against me?”  
  
She nodded.  
  
“What did he say?”  
  
Peri swallowed. “He said you two were lovers.”  
  
Damn him. The Doctor leaned back a bit. “Is that what it was.” He looked down at her. “And he told you I ran from him, and that I’d do the same to you. Is that it?”  
  
“Is it true?” Peri asked.  
  
“Is what true?”  
  
“Were you lovers?”  
  
He didn’t want to admit it. The Master was so cruelly evil now that the thought of touching him was repugnant. He felt guilty just thinking about it, all the death and torture and pain his erstwhile friend had caused. The Doctor hated himself for ever having even been his friend, let alone... “Does it matter?”  
  
“Only if I mean anything to you.”  
  
“Peri!” he glared at her. “You know what you mean to me.”  
  
Peri shook her head. “No I don’t,” she whispered. “You’re unfathomable. I bend to you and I battle with you and I submit to you, and I have no idea who you are. I don’t even know your name.”  
  
The Doctor felt something boiling inside him. He knew it was guilt. He really shouldn’t have started a sexual relationship with this child, she was so hungry and so needy and so desperate. It was probably wrong. But he really hadn’t been able to help it – she was so damned sexy! And this body felt drawn to her, as passionate and desperate as she was. Most of the time he loved this regeneration, all the confidence and passion and strength, but sometimes he felt dragged along by it, as if he had no control whatsoever. He’d felt much the same often enough during his fourth regeneration too, now that he thought of it. But poor Peri wasn’t mature enough to understand, not really. And interspecies relationships were always fraught with troubles, anyway. “You know, that’s another thing Time Lords usually discuss psychically,” he said. He realized he sounded annoyed, but mostly he was angry at himself. “Most of us go by titles. I can’t change the fact that you and I aren’t the same species!”  
  
“But the Master is,” Peri said. “Am I just a poor replacement for him?”  
  
That was just patently ridiculous. “Peri, you’re human, and female. You’re nothing like him.”  
  
“Meaning it’s true,” Peri said.  
  
“That’s not what I said!”  
  
“If it wasn’t true, you’d have said so,” Peri pointed out. He couldn’t deny it. “So it is true. You were lovers.”  
  
“He might call it that,” the Doctor said. “But he has a twisted view of the universe.”  
  
“He seemed to see quite clearly enough,” Peri told him. She fingered the blankets – blankets the Doctor had once used to tie her up. “He saw we were lovers. He said my hand prints were all over your psyche.”  
  
“Well, they are, this regeneration, thank you very much,” the Doctor snapped, annoyed. “Any other tidbits he gave you? Did he tell you I was bollocks at school? Tell you the color of my favorite jimjams when I was eight?”  
  
“No,” Peri said, and the words came from her cold and hard. “He said you were turning into him. He said when you did it with him you did it like you do with me, all violence and power. He said – he said he used to be like you are, the one who was always – always with the power, and he said – he said that when you and me... it was like it was really... him and me....”  
  
That man! He had to pull out the most embarrassing episodes of his youth and throw it all on poor Peri? What was he trying to prove, that he still owned the Doctor? The Master had done the same thing to Adric when he had him in the web on Castrovalva, and boy, did THAT cause a stir between the Doctor and the young Alzarian! It was the worst thing he could do, trying to corrupt his and Peri’s lovemaking, to compare what he had with Peri with what the Master had had... “Wait. How did he know what it is between us?” he asked. “Did you tell him?”  
  
Peri’s face closed over again. She thought he was blaming her, but the Doctor knew people didn’t always have a choice when it came to telling the Master things. “Did he hypnotize you and get you to tell him?”  
  
“N–no,” Peri said.  
  
She sounded so frightened, so embarrassed. Suddenly, the Doctor was horrified. He knew what had happened. He didn’t want to know what had happened. Peri’s mind was so vulnerable... “Peri, did he touch you? Did he take off his gloves?”  
  
Peri’s eyes shone, brown forest pools in the shadows of her face. “Just one,” she said in a very small voice.  
  
“Oh, hell,” the Doctor breathed. He wrapped his arms tightly around her and pulled her close. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Peri. Oh, I should never have...” A thought struck him. He pulled away and looked at her. “He was in your mind, what did he pull out? Any of your past, anything you... didn’t want to remember? ‘Cause I can repair it, or I can try...” The Doctor was always very delicate about Peri’s past. He suspected her stepfather was a very evil man, but she’d never admitted it, and he wasn’t going to press it. Some things it was better not dragged out. He could heal her soul without forcing her to relive the pain, and he intended to do just that.  
  
“No,” Peri said. “It was all just stuff with you. All he cared about was you.”  
  
The Doctor closed his eyes again, this time in relief. “So he wasn’t torturing you,” the Doctor whispered.  
  
“No,” Peri muttered. “Not exactly.”  
  
Something in her tone made the Doctor stare at her again.  
  
“Peri,” he asked flatly. “What did he do?”  
  
Peri shuddered, and then began shivering in earnest. She looked terrified. Oh, please, by all the streams of time, not that.... He felt sick. He had to be sure. He took hold of her face again and stared into her eyes. “Peri,” the Doctor said, his tone tender and hypnotic. He didn’t want to try to mind link, but pure hypnosis probably wouldn’t damage her psyche. “You’re safe. You’re here with me. I want you to tell me, where are you?”  
  
“On the TARDIS, with you,” Peri said automatically.  
  
“And what does that mean?”  
  
“I’m safe,” Peri whispered.  
  
The Doctor nodded. “Peri, what did the Master do to you?” he asked, as evenly as if he was asking her name.  
  
“He told me about you. Then he lifted my skirt and fucked me with his weapon until I came so hard I thought I was going to die.”  
  
The Doctor hated his body in that moment. He wished he was still in his last regeneration, or even his first. Both of those handled things much more calmly than this one. All the passion and zeal and fury that made this regeneration so powerful also made it hard to control. He wanted to kill something. But he gripped himself tightly and kept his face blank, holding her gaze firmly.  
  
“Tell me all of it,” he said.  
  
“He made me call him Master, and he wanted to know about you. What would catch you. What you want. But I don’t know the answers.” Two silent, helpless tears trickled from the corners of her eyes as she said this, but her voice was steady and emotionless. “Then he finally let me come, but he didn’t let it kill me like I thought he would. He seemed to feel sorry for me, by the end. When I said you wouldn’t touch me.”  
  
The Doctor’s hearts were breaking. There was actually pain in his chest, and things were tangled in his mind. He remembered coming across Peri in that mineshaft, and he’d been so worried for all of thirty seconds. She was alive, that was all that had mattered... but it hadn’t occurred to her that the Master might have done something so heinous. But the Master had a grudge to settle with Peri, and he’d taken his revenge completely. “Thank you, Peri,” the Doctor said, still holding her. He was afraid he’d never be able to let her go. “If it hurts to remember telling me, you can forget if you want. Otherwise, you can come back now.”  
  
The trance broke. Peri shook her head slightly, and looked up at him. “Thanks for giving me the choice,” she said. Clearly she’d chosen to remember. “Please don’t do that again.”  
  
The Doctor stared down at her. “I can’t do it unless you let me.”  
  
Peri glared at him. “Meaning I let him?” she snapped. She tried to pull away.  
  
He wouldn’t let her. “Peri, I said nothing of the kind,” he said very evenly. “It’s not at all the same. You were drugged, and he’s...” evil, poisonous, my best enemy and my worst friend, seductive, entrancing, terrifying, evil, evil, evil.... There were too many words. “He’s a bit different. I know that. Please don’t start being angry with me, I can’t handle it right now.”  
  
“YOU can’t handle it?” Peri barked, indignant. “I don’t see what right you have to complain about how YOU feel right now!”  
  
“What I feel, right now,” the Doctor admitted, “is nauseated with horror and grief, not to mention quite a bit of self-loathing because I let him hurt you.” He managed to keep his tone gentle, and he sat perfectly still, but he was trembling with rage. He was trying very hard not to bruise Peri’s arms where he held her. “I feel, right now, as if I could tear the universe apart trying to chase him down, and then proceed to tear him limb from limb. I feel like a blithering overly merciful idiot for letting him go. I feel as if I could send stars into supernova and planets into the outer reaches of chaos, and if I can’t settle down, right now, the idea that he hurt you is going to send me into an obsessive rage the likes of which no human being should have to see. And if you tip me over the edge, I’ll make you so frightened of me that you’ll never want to see me again, and that surely won’t make matters any better. So, if we could avoid falling into our regular pattern, just for right now, I’d appreciate it.”  
  
Peri stared at him. Her face changed to the gentle, concerned look she had when she thought the Doctor was hurt. “I’m okay, Doctor,” she said. She reached up and trapped one of his hands. He grasped it tightly. She gasped as if it hurt, but she didn’t tell him to let go. He tried to relax his grip, but he couldn’t. He wanted to rip apart the sky!  
  
Suddenly Peri reached up and kissed him. She almost never did that, and even then only when they were deep in the middle of making love. She’d never even tried to kiss him when he hadn’t instigated things. “Are you still in there?” she sounded worried. “Your face is so dead. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”  
  
“Peri...” he was at a loss for words. She was blaming HERSELF?  
  
Of course she was. She was an abuse victim, that was always her first line of thought. Blaming herself made her feel as if she was somewhat in control of the situation; that it was her fault, and next time she could prevent it by doing something different. “You did nothing wrong. The person I can’t forgive is myself.” He let go of her other arm, though he still held a death grip on her hand. Gently, he touched her cheek. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. There’s nothing I can say or do that will make up for this. This was my doing, in no way is it yours.”  
  
“How do you figure that?” Peri asked.  
  
“If I hadn’t been making love to you he’d never have touched you,” the Doctor said. “If I hadn’t been so stupid as to let you go off trying to cover two ruthless Time Lords with a dubious matter disrupter. If I had killed the Master all the many times I’ve had the chance...”  
  
“Don’t think like that,” Peri said. “He didn’t actually hurt me.”  
  
“He raped you!” the Doctor roared, with a sound so loud even the TARDIS seemed to echo it.  
  
Peri cringed, covering her ears, but the Doctor jerked back his rage again, breathing like a trapped bull. Peri looked down. “Yeah,” she said, “I guess he did.”  
  
He frowned at her. “You guess?”  
  
“Actually...” Peri’s lip quivered. She looked ashamed of herself.  
  
The Doctor stared at her, and suddenly his rage cooled. He knew that look. He knew that feeling. “Oh.” Finally he supplied the words she couldn’t say. “It wasn’t bad, was it,” the Doctor said.  
  
Peri blushed scarlet and hung her head.  
  
“He stared into your eyes, and they were like gems, and it didn’t matter what he did or what he wanted, you wanted to give it to him, and you wanted him, and you loved him and hated yourself every second, and when it was over you weren’t sure where you and your actual feelings were while all that was happening.”  
  
Peri stared at him. “How could you...?”  
  
“How do I know?” the Doctor asked. “Peri.... You think he never did that to me? He does it, at some level, to everyone.” He put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her almost into his lap. “Dear heart, he’s been hypnotic since the moment he was born. There hasn’t been a regeneration that wasn’t seductive in some manner or another. That and his evil are his defining characteristics. Every Time Lord has things that never change, and those are his. Just as I have... well.” He remembered this was not the time to boast about his honor and his genius and his wit and integrity and bravery. “It doesn’t matter.”  
  
Peri looked up at him, willingly forgoing a chance to praise himself. This was serious. “Are you hurt?” she asked.  
  
The Doctor frowned at her. “You’re asking me if I’M hurt?”  
  
“Well, yeah.”  
  
“You didn’t hit me that hard last night.”  
  
“No, I didn’t mean that. It’s just that it’s... well, it’s kind of like cheating on you, isn’t it?”  
  
“Peri!” He stared at her. “You’re very young. You are, and I know this doesn’t make any sense to you. But this wasn’t something you did of your own volition. He coerced you, if nothing else. He used your relationship with me and your confusion and your youth and his wiles to push you into something you didn’t volunteer to do. I don’t care if you loved every minute of it. He exploited your weaknesses, and that’s evil. The Master is a master at the unwilling seduction. You didn’t ask for this. You had no control.” He wasn’t sure any of this was getting through to her. “I just hope...” He looked at her. “I hope this doesn’t damage you in any way. I hope you can still... We can... I hope this doesn’t make it so you can’t....”  
  
“Are you trying to say you still want to fuck me sometimes?”  
  
The Doctor gazed at her. “If you said never again I’d give it up without regret,” he said. “Well... without much regret. For myself. But you seem... being with me seemed to be helping you, somehow, and I hope you don’t... close off part of yourself.”  
  
“Doctor... this really wasn’t that bad. I don’t know what happened to me in the console room, why I went so.... But compared to some things I’ve had to put up with – hell, compared to most of the things you’ve done, this was really mild. He didn’t hurt me. Not physically, anyway.”  
  
“Yes,” the Doctor admitted. “But don’t pretend there isn’t a difference, Peri.”  
  
“I know there should be....” Peri trailed off. “But I was...” She looked down.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I was... lonely,” Peri said. “I didn’t tell him to do it, but I wanted....” She swallowed. “I wanted you.”  
  
The Doctor took his hand back and buried his face in it.  
  
“Is it really impossible?” Peri asked.  
  
“Yes,” the Doctor said flatly. “It is... impossible. Impossible. Impossible.”  
  
“Why does it have to be impossible?”  
  
“I’m a Time Lord!” the Doctor snapped. “We don’t! It’s like asking you to regenerate, it just doesn’t WORK. You’re lucky you’re so damned seductive that it only takes weeks, usually it takes years!”  
  
“Years?” She looked down at herself, still in the empire dress she’d been wandering around the mines in. “I must be flat gorgeous.”  
  
The Doctor laughed, helplessly. “Yes,” he said. “It makes this even harder. Sometimes, I wish I could. I mean you... you wander through the TARDIS half dressed, and I stare at you, and I wish I wanted to throw you on the console and eat you like custard, but I can’t. I just can’t. So I turn my mind off and I find something to fight or some problem to solve, and I try so hard not to look at you. Not to touch you.”  
  
“Well... why can’t you just touch me?”  
  
“Because I don’t want to lead you on. I don’t want to start something that I can’t finish.”  
  
“Why can’t you finish it?”  
  
“Must I spell it out for you?” the Doctor asked, incredulous.  
  
“But... the Master could,” Peri said. “And he didn’t want me, either.”  
  
The Doctor stared at her. This was a tack that had quite simply not occurred to him.


	4. Chapter 4

  
  
“Why can’t you do what the Master did and... I don’t know.” She was blushing terribly by now — she wondered if her face was glowing in the dim room like a brand. “God, this is hard to talk about!”  
  
“I know it is.”  
  
Peri took a deep breath. “Why couldn’t we do things that aren’t really sex,” she said. “Just... things that are... close...?”  
  
The Doctor considered it. He thought about stopping at an Earth adult shop and purchasing sex toys, stimulating her in the appropriate manner. The thought made him actively nauseated. It was no good. He knew that if he was primed and ready the idea would be appealing. It wasn’t that he found it distasteful. It just wasn’t the right time. The idea of being the one to perform the deed, even when the deed was not stimulating to him... “I’m sorry, Peri. It would make me very uncomfortable.”  
  
Peri sighed. “I just thought... if the Master could do it....”  
  
“The Master is mad, Peri. He’s able to disconnect himself in a way I never could — and don’t want to.”  
  
Peri shook her head. “But he seemed....” She stopped.   
  
“What is it, Peri?” the Doctor coaxed.   
  
“He reminded me so much of you,” Peri whispered.  
  
“He is a Time Lord.”   
  
“It’s more than that.” The Doctor shook his head, confused. “It was like he was copying you... or you learned how to do it from him.”   
  
“Oh, Peri, it’s nothing so simple. He’s just following old patterns. The reason I can do those things to you isn’t because....” He was finding this really hard to get out, and his embarrassment was palpable. He was right. They never actually TALKED about sex, they just got down to doing it. “It isn’t because he once did it to me. Or that someone did it for me. It’s more because I once WANTED someone to do it for me. So I... I know what you want.” He smiled at her, uncertainly. “The Master does have some insight into... what I once was. I’m not saying why, or admitting to anything between us, but he does know me. Now, I was young — very young — like you. And it is something I haven’t revisited since, until I found myself in this regeneration, here, with you. And it’s because... you want it... that I’m doing it at all.”   
  
Neither one of them had ever come out and SAID that the rough, dominating sex was what she wanted. Peri wasn’t sure if this was a breakthrough or a failure.   
  
“The thing is, there’s one major difference between what the Master did to you... and what we do. And that difference is, you always have a way to stop me. No one ever has any way of stopping him.”   
  
Peri thought back to all of those terrible hours with her stepfather, where there was no way to protest, no way to stop him. Being with the Doctor had echos of that slavery, and sometimes it seemed to rhyme, but in truth that quiet key she always held made it the absolute antithesis of that. “But... isn’t that kind of the point?” she asked. “That I have this key to stop you, so....”   
  
“Exactly,” the Doctor said. “I never held the key.” He smiled down at her. “In fact I don’t hold it now.”  
  
“But I don’t want to...”  
  
“You don’t want to use it,” the Doctor said. “I know that. Which is why I never push you so hard that you have to. But you can. And as you said, that’s the point.”   
  
Peri stared into his eyes — eyes bright with infinite stars. “Do you want a key?”  
  
“Pardon?”   
  
“Do you want a way to stop me? Some way to... I don’t know. Make me less....”  
  
“Sexy?” The Doctor grinned. “Peri, it’s who you are. I don’t want to stop that. It’s part of what’s made me who I am right now — and I rather like myself like this. I have more fun with you than I’ve had in you can’t imagine how long. I just wish there was some way of giving you what you need... and thus giving me what I’d want. Because I want to make you happy. I love to see you lose yourself in this lovely body you once grew to hate. I love to see you learn to love yourself. But I can’t be the one to do it for you. Not as often as you’d like, anyway.”   
  
Peri sighed. “Shame we can’t just lock the Master in the back room and let him out when you’re ready to torment me.”   
  
“A proxy?!” the Doctor laughed. Then the laughter faded and he stared at her, a strange light in his face. He seemed to grow in that moment, until he filled the bed, filled the room. Peri knew that look. He had an idea — an idea he really, really liked. “Would you?”  
  
Peri was suddenly a little frightened. “Would I what?”  
  
The Doctor pounced, like a cat on a mouse, holding her down on the bed with hands like steel. “Would you be able?”   
  
Peri’s heart was going like a hummingbird’s wings, and her breath trembled in her mouth. She felt like she was trying not to faint. Her always ready body ached for more from the strong weight above her. “Able to what?” she managed to say.   
  
His right hand released her, and he touched her face gently with one finger, smoothing her eyebrows, caressing her cheek. “You’re already melting beneath me,” he said seductively — much more seductively than she would have thought possible, given the tone of their conversation until now. “How much of this submission is real, and how much is the game?” His thumb caressed her lips. “How far does the game go?”  
  
Peri was fighting to keep her eyes open. “Doctor, you’re talking in riddles again.”   
  
The Doctor grinned. “You’re mine, Peri. You know that, right? My only one, my anchor to the universe, the center of my life. _Mine._ It doesn’t matter what you do, or where you are, or who you’re with. You _are_ mine.”  
  
Peri’s breath came in gasps, and her hips moved, inviting him. “Yesss....”   
  
“Mine to do with as I please.”   
  
She forced her eyes open, but she couldn’t read the expression on his face.   
  
“Who is your master, Peri?” the Doctor whispered.   
  
“Mm.”   
  
“Who is your master?”   
  
“You.”  
  
“Who is your master?”   
  
“You, Doctor.”   
  
The Doctor’s smile broadened, and his nose touched hers in an Eskimo kiss. Then he rolled off her with a flounce, grabbed his shoes, and danced out the door. Peri sat up, bewildered. “Doctor?” she called after him.   
  
The Doctor poked his head back around the door frame. “You did get enough sleep, right?”   
  
“Yes. But—”   
  
“Good, good. Get dressed. We’re going out.”   
  
“Dressed how?”   
  
The Doctor shrugged. “However you wish. It’s your body.”  
  
Peri was left, heated and dissatisfied on the bed. Finally she rolled her eyes and got up.   
  
A few moments later she entered the console room in her usual shorts and leotard, and the Doctor beamed at her. “How are you feeling?”  
  
“Confused. And a little frustrated. What was that all about?”  
  
“You’ll see.” The Tardis hummed and whirred and a moment later set down. “Ah! I think we’ve arrived.” The Doctor had a very mischievous look in his eyes. “Excuse me. You might find this a little degrading, but I’d rather get the point across quickly.”  
  
“What _point_?”   
  
“This one.” The Doctor hopped over to her and wrapped something around her neck. Peri recognized the feel of cold metal immediately. It was his long green watch chain, which the Doctor had used on her many times.   
  
“What are you doing?”   
  
The Doctor didn’t answer. He simply slid the large loop which was supposed hold the watch fob over his index finger and tugged. The metal dragged on her neck and pulled her along behind him, like a dog on a leash.   
  
Peri took a step after him, and then balked. “I thought you said I wasn’t a pet!”   
  
“You aren’t.” He stopped and stared at her, all mischief and flippancy gone from his eyes. “But do you trust me?”  
  
Peri stared back for a long moment. Then her eyes closed. She took a deep breath, and nodded.   
  
“Then come along, little song bird. I’m opening your cage.” He opened the door to the Tardis and led her out.   
  
“Lovely box. Like the retro look,” someone said as they exited. “Need some handcuffs to complete the set?”  
  
“I make my own arrangements for that,” said the Doctor blithely to the handsome young man against the wall. “Are we in rec center three or four?”  
  
“Three,” said the man. He pointed his chin at Peri. “She’s pretty, does she speak?”   
  
“Excuse me!” Peri snapped.   
  
“Quite forcefully,” the Doctor said with a laugh. “I like her that way.”   
  
The man shrugged. “To each his own. Teacher doesn’t like me speaking when he’s got the collar on me.”   
  
“Teacher’s missing out,” said the Doctor. “You have a lovely voice.”  
  
The young man blushed.   
  
“Is rec center four open?”  
  
“Of course. Why do you think I’m in the coat room? Teacher’s busy there.”   
  
Peri leaned forward to whisper in the Doctor’s ear. “Doctor! That man is handcuffed to the wall!”   
  
“I know,” the Doctor said, unperturbed. “You are comfortable?” he asked gently.   
  
The man blushed. “Teacher will check on me in an hour or so.”   
  
“Ah. Good to know. Perhaps I’ll see you on the way out.”   
  
“Perhaps,” the young man said with a seductive smile. “If I’m here... I’m here for general use.”  
  
“We’ll keep that in mind,” the Doctor said.   
  
Peri followed the Doctor out of the coat room, the gentle pull on her throat guiding her along. “He was flirting with you.”   
  
“Typical 51st century guy,” the Doctor said. “They’ve abandoned most of the sexual pretensions of your era. Ah! Hello dear lady, could you direct us to Recreation Center Four?”   
  
Peri blushed bright pink as she realized the woman the Doctor was speaking to was completely naked. “Just up those stairs and to your left. She up for sale?”   
  
“Certainly not!” Peri snapped.   
  
“We’ll see,” said the Doctor. “She’s new to all this.”  
  
The naked woman’s look softened, and she smiled at Peri. “Welcome. Whatever your desires, there’s always something here for you.”  
  
The Doctor led her on, and Peri stayed closer to him than the watch chain strictly demanded. “Doctor, what is this place?”  
  
“51st century recreation center,” the Doctor said. “The lower floors are swimming and tennis and what have you. But human beings have become a little less rigid about certain things, and the upper floors are for more... mentally strenuous exercise. By the time human race reached the 51st century, mankind had spread across the galaxy, sought out new life and new civilizations, and boldly went where no man had gone before, including some very interesting boudoirs. I think you’ll like it here.”  
  
Peri’s eyes went wide. “What am I supposed to do here?”   
  
“Whatever I like,” the Doctor said with a sharp grin.  
  
Peri stopped. “Doctor. I’m not sure I like this.”  
  
The Doctor turned to her. “Do you want to go back to the Tardis?” he asked. “Same rules apply. Always.”   
  
Peri froze. She didn’t want to say no, but she didn’t want to say yes. Of course, she never wanted to say yes. She screamed no over and over again in his ear, and he never listened — because she hadn’t actually told him to stop, with the only word that applied. The word still applied.  
  
“Just say the word, and we’ll go. No hard feelings. No disappointment.” He gazed at her levelly, and she couldn’t answer. She just couldn’t.   
  
“Maybe not yet?” he said softly. He came closer to her and lightly touched her throat, running his thumb down her cheek. The touch of his hand made her shiver, and tremors ran down her legs, starting unbidden flames. “I’ll keep an ear open,” he whispered. Peri nodded, and the Doctor led her on, through the corridors, to Rec Center 4.   
  
  
***  
  
  
Not all the people they passed — in various stages of undress — were human or even humanoid. Most of the active “recreation” seemed to be held in more private chambers, but some were clearly — and intentionally — open to the public.   
  
Rec Center 4, when they finally got to it, appeared to be a small office with an insectoid looking receptionist. “Welcome,” said the receptionist, flicking a hologramatic screen on the side of the desk. She turned her faceted, jewel-like eyes on Peri and the Doctor. “A top and bottom session, I take it? We have some excellent rooms open for you right now.”   
  
“No,” said the Doctor. “I’d like side session if possible. Human, male, attractive, more slender than muscular I think. And do you have any blondes? She likes blondes.”  
  
“Dual session, or proxy?”   
  
“Definitely proxy,” said the Doctor. “I’m merely the spectator.”   
  
“Doctor!” Peri hissed.  
  
“Stop complaining and take it,” the Doctor barked quietly, but there was a smile in his eyes. “You’ll like it. Or I’ll know the reason why.”   
  
Peri considered demanding that he take her back to the Tardis. But the tickling nervous sensation in her chest could not be ignored, and her curiosity was positively burning. “If I asked?” she checked.   
  
“You won’t,” the Doctor said with a smirk. He looked back to the receptionist.  
  
“We actually have a selection that fit your requirements,” she said. “Would she like to view them?”   
  
“No, I’ll do that,” said the Doctor. “She’ll take whatever I give her.”  
  
“God, I hate you,” Peri muttered.   
  
“I know,” the Doctor said blithely. He perused a collection of three faces that were listed on the insectoid woman’s screen, with stats and working specialties listed beside them. One was strawberry blond and built like a male stripper. One was ash blond and looked more than a little elfin. The Doctor touched the figure on the right, dark blond and lithe, but not slender. “He should do,” she said. “I like his list of talents. Rooms available?”   
  
“Standard or specialty?”   
  
“Definitely standard,” said the Doctor.  
  
“You’re merely a spectator, but she needs to go through a hygiene check.”   
  
“Easy,” said the Doctor, and he took Peri’s hand and passed it through the hologramic screen. It flared blue for a moment and then flashed green — clear. “My vessel has an automatic disinfection — clears almost all diseases instantly.”   
  
“Pregnancy taboo?”   
  
“Yes,” said the Doctor firmly.   
  
“Noted. Her worker will come prepared. Room fourteen is already clear, if you’d care to enter.”   
  
“Thank you,” said the Doctor. “Come along, Peri.”   
  
“If you think I’m going to—”  
  
“Shut up!” he said.   
  
“Wait,” said the receptionist. She looked up at Peri and rattled off something so quickly and so automatically that Peri almost couldn’t follow it. “Waver. Honeyton Recreation Center has a zero tolerance policy for coercion or force of any kind. Police and counselors are standing by should assistance be required, and protective custody will be deployed without charge upon request. Please state that you are here of your own free will.”   
  
“Well, Peri?” the Doctor asked with a smirk. “Are you going to arrest me, or have our relationship torn apart by sanctioned counselors?”   
  
“Are you kidding?” Peri asked loudly.  
  
“Please state that you are here of your own free will,” the receptionist asked again.  
  
“I guess.”   
  
The computer bleeped and a sign flashed across the hologramatic screen. ANSWER INVALID.   
  
“Yes!” Peri said loudly, though she blushed.   
  
“Good girl,” the Doctor whispered in her ear. The feel of his breath sent a shiver all through her. His lips felt hot against her skin, though he did not kiss her. She ached for him to kiss her....   
  
He tugged her gently by the watch chain and led her though a door marked 14. The interior was simple and pastel, like an unadorned hotel room. There was a bed with clean white sheets, and it was comfortably warm. It smelled of something akin to sandalwood. The floor at their feet sported thick pink plush carpeting.   
  
The penny finally dropped, and Peri realized that the only reason it hadn’t before was because her psyche had been holding it up intentionally. “This is a brothel!”  
  
“It’s a recreation center,” the Doctor said with a broad grin. “The man about to come through that door is more like a personal trainer than a prostitute. He’s had extensive education in sexual interactions, and knows how to teach men, women, or consenting aliens of sexual maturity how to enjoy sexual coupling with human males. This one also has extensive training in sexual social work and psychology. I thought you’d enjoy his insights.”   
  
“I don’t want my psyche laid bare by some gigolo!”  
  
“At my instruction, he’ll lay something else bare entirely,” said the Doctor. “Ah!” The door opened and in strode the Doctor’s choice. He wore only a fine white robe, open to reveal his lightly muscled chest. He was taller than Peri, but no taller than the Doctor. His hair was just too light to be considered brown, but it was straight and smooth. He looked to be about thirty years old, and his face was soft and kind. Peri flinched as she realized he looked a little — just a little — like the Doctor used to look, when she first knew him. “I thought so,” said the Doctor with a gentle smile. “Peri here is mine.”   
  
“Understood,” said the man with a bit of a nod in Peri’s direction. “Shall she call me Demon or Angel?”   
  
“I think a fallen angel, at this stage,” said the Doctor. “She’s inexperienced in the concept of a proxy.”   
  
“Ah,” said the man. “Understood.” He came up to Peri and lightly took her hand. “You may call me Fallen,” he said, his voice deep and husky.   
  
Fallen’s hand was warm compared to the Doctor’s, and he smelled of a faintly acidic soap, possibly lime. “I don’t really know what I’m doing here,” Peri said nervously.   
  
“She talks a lot,” the Doctor said. “Just ignore it.”   
  
“Very well. I stop at Break Up.”   
  
“I’ll let you know if she wants to stop.”   
  
“Very well. What shall I do first?”   
  
“Strip her.”  
  
“Now wait a minute!” Peri complained, but neither the Doctor nor Fallen listened to her. The Doctor stepped forward and unhooked the watch chain from around her throat, and then stood back against the wall with an evil smirk. Fallen took firm but gentle hold of her leotard and pulled it down around her elbows, leaving her breasts exposed. “Wait!” Peri shrieked.   
  
Fallen glanced at the Doctor, but he shook his head slightly. With the faintest hint of a shrug to his eyebrows, Fallen moved her arms out of the leotard and bent to his knees to unbutton her shorts.   
  
“This is nuts!” said Peri to the Doctor. “This wasn’t what I asked for.”   
  
“Say the word, we’ll go home,” said the Doctor.  
  
“Quit throwing that at me!” Peri snapped.  
  
“Then stop complaining.”   
  
“I’m not complaining!” Peri snapped. “I’m arguing!”   
  
“Shut up,” the Doctor replied shortly.   
  
“Make me.”  
  
“You heard her,” the Doctor said to Fallen. “Make her.”   
  
“Very well,” said Fallen, and he took something out of the pocket of his robe. Peri had just enough time to see that it was a clean white handkerchief before Fallen’s fingers were forcing it into her mouth. It tasted fluffy, and faintly of strawberries. He was very adept, not forcing it so far back that she gagged, but filling her mouth entirely.   
  
“Don’t spit it out,” the Doctor said conversationally. He glanced to the side and pressed a button on the wall. Two small benches slid out of the corner of the wall. The Doctor perched himself on one and kicked his feet up on the other before pulling a book out of the voluminous pocket of his coat.   
  
Peri stared in sheer amazement as he started to read — Dickens, no less — as she was being systematically stripped and gagged in the middle of the room. She very much wanted to spit the cloth out and shout at him, but Fallen’s warm hands were tracing down the contours of her buttocks, and she was trembling. Fallen pulled the last of her clothing down around her ankles and then helped her to step out of them. The cool air tickled her at her body. “Anything else, sir?” he asked gently.   
  
“Use your best judgement,” the Doctor said idly. “I’ll tell you if there’s anything she needs or doesn’t like. She doesn’t want to like this, but she does. Bad history, so be a little gentle. But only a little.”   
  
“Understood,” Fallen said with a smile, and his hands took firm hold of Peri’s wrists. “I’m not one to explain what I’m doing,” he warned her. “You just have to sit back and experience it.” He twisted her backward until her back was against his chest. She struggled, but she didn’t try to spit out the cloth, and Fallen didn’t seem concerned. Without another word he forced her bodily over the bed and twisted one hand up behind her back. With his free hand he smacked her ass, the sharp clap of it absorbed by the creme plush of the walls.   
  
Peri grunted around the strawberry flavored cloth as Fallen’s hand caressed her flesh, tickling the sensitive area between her legs before lifting again and smacking her, a little harder than before. He kept alternating between smacks and caresses, occasionally allowing his finger to travel down to her labia before snatching the pleasure away again and replacing it with pain.   
  
Eventually he let go of her wrist, and she didn’t try to move as he used both hands to caress and smack her, hitting now her thighs, now her lower back, now sliding his fingers beneath her hips before hitting her again with a tiny thunderclap of sensual pain.   
  
“Look at those eyes!” Fallen said suddenly. Peri’s eyes were half closed in a daze of sensual release, and her breath came deeply through her chest. “She’s loving every second of this.”  
  
“Fun, isn’t it?” the Doctor said, flipping over a page in his book.  
  
“I wasn’t sure at first, listening to her.”   
  
“She’s just one of those who likes to fight,” the Doctor said conversationally. “About everything.”  
  
“Oh,” said Fallen. “One of those.”   
  
Now Peri did struggle to get up. She didn’t like being talked over. But Fallen grabbed her and flipped her on the bed, holding her down with a hand on her chest. “Do I dare take that out?” he said, indicating her fluffy gag.   
  
“She’ll tell you to stop,” said the Doctor. “But if you don’t mind, go ahead.”   
  
“I’ll wait until she’s tired, then,” said Fallen. “I don’t like disobeying women. Or men.”   
  
“Oh, you’re obeying me,” said the Doctor over his book. “Just like she is. Tie her up or something, you’re leaving her far too many choices for her taste.”   
  
“That’s easily done,” said Fallen said. He crawled over her, holding her down with his slight, berobed body as he pulled what appeared to be retractable ropes from beneath the bed. No. Not ropes. Soft manacles, because they snapped around Peri’s wrists with a quiet sigh of technology. When Fallen released them they slid back like automotive seat belts, leaving Peri unable to lengthen them again. He pulled out two more for her ankles, leaving her spread eagled on the bed, utterly helpless.   
  
“Now what?” he asked, half of himself and half of the Doctor.   
  
“Oh, have your way with her,” the Doctor said conversationally. “As quickly and forcefully as you can. She’ll probably be quite refreshed by someone who’s done in under and hour.”   
  
“Very funny.”  
  
Peri had to speak, then. She forced her tongue under the cloth and pushed it out, spitting it to the side. “He’s not kidding,” she complained loudly. “That man goes on for hours, I swear he’s trying to kill me sometimes!”  
  
“That’s not a service we provide here,” Fallen said. “But there are some adventure series in Rec Center two that can have a mock death, and we can provide trainers for those.”   
  
“No _thank_ you!” Peri snapped. “I don’t know who would get off on—”  
  
“Oh, just hit her, will you?” the Doctor asked. “Lightly will do, just on the cheek. It’ll sometimes shut her up for a good thirty seconds.”   
  
“As if you can talk, Mister I need to say it three, three, THREE times!”   
  
Fallen took the Doctor’s advice and slapped her face. The shock of the blow passed through her all the way to her groin, and her cheek tingled deliciously. All she could say after that was “Ungh!”  
  
Fallen slapped her other cheek — she’d already realized he liked to keep things symmetrical, as the perfectly even warm tingles on her buttocks could attest. She gasped, and Fallen kissed her open mouth, his tongue dancing over hers, his breath hot and hungry against her. “Yes,” he said gently when he was done. He straddled her, finally untying his robe and flinging it behind him.   
  
Peri made a small sound of desire as the sight of his fine physique was revealed. The heat of him was refreshing — the Doctor was slightly cooler to the touch than a human man — and his scent was intoxicating. It almost wasn’t human, a deep, heady musk beneath the lime. She wanted it so badly her stomach ached. “Oh, god,” she found herself whispering. “No!”  
  
Fallen’s eyes narrowed. “She doesn’t mean that, does she?”   
  
“No,” the Doctor said. “She just hasn’t realized she can say yes, yet. Like I said. Bad history.”  
  
“Poor, pretty girl,” Fallen murmured. “Such a shame. Let’s strip that away, shall we?” He bent over her and wrapped his mouth around her nipple, sucking hard enough that it hurt.  
  
“Ahh!” Peri grunted with the shock of pain and pleasure at once. Fallen’s hand reached up and squeezed her other nipple, twisting it as if he’d tear it off. “Nngh!” Fallen quickly switched sides, his fingers now twisting at the damp nipple his mouth had abandoned. As the pleasure swirled in her Peri heard herself screaming out, “Damn you, Doctor! I hate you!”   
  
“Good,” the Doctor said absently, and turned another page in his book.   
  
Quite suddenly, without any warning, Fallen shifted, and his cock plunged into her, his neck beside her mouth. The scent of him was almost overwhelming, as if the finest, sexiest cologne had been mixed with his natural sweat. He was actually smaller than the Doctor, but there was a much more urgent movement to his thrusts, a very human enjoyment that Peri had never willingly experienced. “Oh, god, yes!” Peri heard herself whispering. “Oh, yes!” Her arms at legs strained at her bonds, desperate to grasp him to her, but she had no choice here, it seemed, but to simply hope he would do as she wanted. She thrust her hips up toward him and bit at the intoxicating flesh of his neck.   
  
Fallen lifted his head and gazed at her, lust coloring his face. His eyes were smiling. “You feel me?” he asked quietly. “You want me in you?”  
  
“Yes,” Peri breathed.   
  
“Kiss me.”   
  
She did, almost annoyed at how his lips distracted her from his body. She squirmed beneath him, hungry for his hunger, squeezing at him with inner muscles in attempt to get him to come that much quicker. She suddenly wanted him to come — and come quickly — with a very human urgency she’d never been able to enjoy before.  
  
He made a small noise, but his eyes were wicked. “I won’t give it to you,” he said, and she knew he knew what she wanted. “I won’t,” he said again, his breath hard through his desire. “Not unless you give it to me, first. I’m a professional, I can hold this as long as it takes.” Peri groaned as she realized that were true. “Give me what I want. Give me what you want.”   
  
“Hit her again,” the Doctor said quietly from out of her vision. “Or threaten to choke her. It helps.”   
  
“Does it?” Fallen asked. His hand reached up and went around her neck. “You like this? You want me to claim you?”   
  
Peri whimpered as she realized the Doctor was right — and exactly how calculated his lovemaking had become with her. Fallen half bit his lip as he thrust again and added his other hand. He squeezed her throat very gently with both his hands, just cutting off enough of the air flow to be uncomfortable, not enough to stop her breath. “Come for me, girl. Give it to me and I’ll give it back.”   
  
Peri resisted. He felt so good, and his hands around her throat made her need to obey him, but she didn’t want... she did want... oh, god!   
  
“Give it!” Fallen grunted, squeezing hard for a moment, and Peri broke, the orgasm rocking through her like a firework. “Oh, beautiful!” Fallen breathed, shifted his hands to her shoulders, and worked her even harder, until suddenly he moaned, shuddering against her with ecstacy. His cock leapt within her, and she clenched him back wickedly.  
  
Fallen’s mouth fell open and he stared at her in shock and almost disbelief as she forced more pleasure out of him. Suddenly he pulled away, gasping. “I thought you said she was inexperienced.”  
  
“With humans,” said the Doctor with a grin. “But clearly she’s picked up something somewhere.”   
  
Sweating and panting Fallen looked the Doctor over. “What are you if not human? Nesting consciousness?” he asked him.   
  
“Time Lord, actually, but that won’t mean anything to you.”   
  
“Time Lord? I thought you were legendary.”   
  
“Oh, I am,” the Doctor said, just as Peri said, “He is.”   
  
Fallen let out an impressed sigh. “Well. I’ll just unstrap you, then.”   
  
“Oh, I’ll do that,” the Doctor said, sliding his book back into his pocket. “Assign us a steam room, will you?”   
  
“Of course. It was very nice too work with you, my angel,” he said softly in Peri’s ear. “He’s a very lucky... whatever he is.”   
  
“Tell him that,” Peri muttered, only half annoyed.   
  
Fallen glanced up at the Doctor, and then whispered so quietly that Peri was sure the Doctor couldn’t have heard. “He already knows. You can tell by the way he looks at you.” He kissed her cheek softly and said farewell with a final caress before redonning his robe and slipping out the door.   
  
Peri let loose a shaky sigh as Fallen shut the door behind him, and waited for the Doctor to release her. The Doctor was taking his own sweet time about that, and Peri shifted to look at him. “Very interesting architecture, isn’t it?” the Doctor asked, gazing at the arch of the frosted window. “Fifty-first century classic, with the semi-roman arch designs and the 21st century sensibilities that were carried over by—”  
  
“Doctor!” Peri said pointedly. She waved her arms and twisted her naked body to make the point.   
  
“Oh, was there something you wanted?”   
  
“Now you’re doing this on purpose.”   
  
“Yes.”   
  
Peri sighed glumly and stared up at the ceiling, waiting for him to deign to untie her. Her toe twitched in annoyance.  
  
With a slight chuckle the Doctor pressed a button on the side of the bed, and all four restraints disconnected and slid back beneath the mattress. Peri let herself curl in, her overstretched muscles welcoming the release. “That was....” She looked up at the Doctor. “Odd,” she finally said.   
  
The Doctor grinned at her and reached out to caress her hair. “You loved it.”   
  
“Shut up.”   
  
“You don’t have to admit it. It’s in your face.”   
  
Peri looked away. “He smelled really good,” she admitted.   
  
“51st century pheremones,” the Doctor said. “Humanity had an extra three thousand years to pre-select for good smelling mates. Now. Let’s get you into the steam room and massage those kinks out of your muscles.”  
  
“I might fall asleep.”   
  
“Oh, don’t worry. This I’ll join you in.”   
  
“You in a steam room?”  
  
“I’ll have to leave my book outside,” the Doctor said absently. “Bother.”   
  
“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” Peri accused him.   
  
“Oh, Peri,” the Doctor said with a wicked, wicked grin. “I haven’t even begun to enjoy this yet.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is where I got bored with this story, since there wasn't anywhere much to go from here, character-wise. She gets what she wants. He enjoys watching. They get on with life. End of story.


End file.
